


A Call To Motion

by thepetulantpen



Category: The Witcher (TV), Wiedźmin | The Witcher - All Media Types
Genre: Dancing, Fluff, M/M, thats really it you guys
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-02-21
Updated: 2020-02-21
Packaged: 2021-02-28 03:20:54
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,157
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22836937
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/thepetulantpen/pseuds/thepetulantpen
Summary: A mage demands that Geralt attend a court dance in exchange for a rare ingredient. Geralt does not know how to dance.There is only one person who can help with this problem.
Relationships: Geralt z Rivii | Geralt of Rivia/Jaskier | Dandelion
Comments: 10
Kudos: 338





	A Call To Motion

“You’re _kidding_.”

“Jaskier—“

“No, no wait. Don’t answer that, let me pretend for a few more minutes.”

Jaskier closes his eyes and puts his hands over them, as if doing so will trap whatever image he’s picturing. With a soft growl of warning, Geralt grabs his wrist, trying to pull it away, but Jaskier twists out of his grip. Geralt lets him, allowing a short tug of war, and smiles, broader while Jaskier can’t see him and tease him.

When he thinks he’s given Jaskier ample opportunity to put up a fight, he puts a fraction of his strength into pulling, easily removing Jaskier’s hands. Jaskier pouts dramatically, but the effect is ruined when he doesn’t quite manage to stifle a laugh at Geralt’s face.

“Oh ho, _no_. That’s one of your serious faces.”

“I don’t _kid_ , Jaskier. You know that.”

“Mm,” Jaskier brings his hands up to frame Geralt’s face- his _grimace_ , rather- and grins, “Is that why you look like you’re about to fight a den full of wyverns?”

“I’d prefer that, actually.”

“Of course you would.” Jaskier shakes his head and his eyes go skyward, praying for strength in the impossible task he’s about to undertake. “And they say _I’m_ the dramatic one of our little duo.”

Geralt frowns- the sort of frown Jaskier identifies as just between annoyed and angry, undecided on whether it’s genuine or not. “I’m starting to regret coming to you for this.”

“Nonsense! For one, I don’t believe you know a single other person who can dance.”

“Yen—“

“The sort of dance _appropriate_ for court, mind you.” Jaskier shudders, like the mere thought of the sorceress is too terrible to bear, though the gesture has lost much of its bite since he and Yennefer have become… used to each other. “Besides, I’m not just your _only_ option, I’m your _best_.”

“Is that right? Did I miss your classical dancing certification in your list of achievements?”

“Probably. It’s such a long list, you can’t really be blamed for getting a little lost.” Jaskier throws an arm around Geralt’s shoulders and is delighted to find not only that the contact is allowed, but that the witcher follows him as he guides them out of the room. “Now, enough procrastinating. We have a lot of work to do before you’re ready to impress a mage with your footwork.”

Geralt groans, managing to sound more miserable than he had in his near death throes after a battle with an especially stubborn kikimora.

“Oh, hush. I’m an excellent teacher, you’ll be just fine in my capable hands.”

Somehow, Geralt doesn’t seem particularly reassured.

…

“Geralt, if you step on my foot there’s a high probability you’ll break my toes and then _neither_ of us will be dancing.”

Geralt only growls in response, though he does pay more attention to his feet, concentrating completely on copying Jaskier’s movement without overstepping. These steps are unnatural and stilted, nothing like the fluidity of a fight. He has to think about every step, constantly detangling his jumbled memories of the footwork required for rigid royal dances.

“I don’t understand why there has to be so many damn steps- fuck!”

Geralt steps forward at the same Jaskier is meant to and he sees disaster as his boot hovers- either he’ll lose his balance, or Jaskier will get stepped on- but the bard, graceful as always, steps neatly out of the way. Dodging Geralt’s step necessitates a jump backwards, and Jaskier makes it look natural, like it was part of the dance all along. It’s hard to even look past Jaskier’s confidence long enough to scrutinize the steps.

Jaskier’s face doesn’t change from the calm focus he’s maintained throughout all the stumbling up to this point and he doesn’t pause in his dancing as he gently corrects Geralt’s stance, setting him back on course.

“You were supposed to move back, there. Remember? Forward, back—“

“I can’t do this.”

Geralt stops abruptly and Jaskier’s momentum carries him forward, bringing him crashing into Geralt’s chest. The witcher doesn’t move, solid as a stone wall, and Jaskier scowls up at him. It’s an uncharacteristic expression, surprisingly _annoyed_ , with only bare traces of joking.

“You _can_. You’re just so concerned with being right that you don’t _want_ to.”

“What’s _that_ supposed to mean?”

“It means you don’t want to be proven wrong and admit that you really are capable of dancing. Because if you are-“

Jaskier pushes forward, sending Geralt backward a step, then uses his hands on Geralt’s waist and shoulder to guide him into a sidestep. There’s not enough strength in it to truly force the movement, but the pressure triggers Geralt’s instincts and leaves him following the suggestions of Jaskier’s hands without knowing what he’s doing. Quickly, before Geralt’s stubborn muscles recover their senses, Jaskier does something complicated with his footing, stepping into Geralt’s space in a way that gives him no choice but to pivot.

Geralt blinks when they stop moving, surmising, from hindsight and Jaskier’s smug smirk, that they’ve managed the turn he’s been missing. Pulled it off quite nicely, actually.

“-then that means the bard was right.”

Jaskier eases his grip on Geralt’s shoulder and relaxes again, getting back into form as comfortably as he slips on his doublet in the morning. He speaks again, softer, “Let’s just try again, ok?”

Geralt frowns down at their feet but obediently shuffles back into place, lining up with Jaskier. He tries, best as he can, to relax his hands as well, releasing some of the tension that’s found a home there.

“We’ve already tried ten times. I’m not getting any better.”

It’s odd to hear Geralt almost… _insecure_. Sure, he’s masked it with a healthy amount of frustration, but Jaskier knows a vulnerability when he sees it. Geralt must too- with how accustomed he is to finding gaps in armor and old scars hiding weak spots- but he’s _not_ accustomed to someone being there to help him with _his_ vulnerabilities, to guard where his armor cannot reach.

“Think of it as a new monster to learn. Did you fell your first selkiemore in one slash?”

Geralt scoffs, too loud to overcompensate for the smile creeping onto his face. “I haven’t felled _any_ selkiemores in one slash, it takes a few hacks at least—“

“ _Exactly_. We just have to keep hacking at this until you get it down.” Point proven, Jaskier starts the dance up again, slow on the opening steps. “Would it be easier to remember the steps if I put them to song?”

At the lack of immediate response, Jaskier looks up to find Geralt’s standard frown, but no open refusal. In fact, there’s a sort of grudging acceptance written across the concentration in his furrowed brow. Jaskier takes that as explicit permission and starts composing.

…

“This one is worse.”

Geralt picks at the front of the jacket Jaskier has given him, working the embroidered silk between his fingers. It matches the pants, creating a sophisticated but modest silver-grey color palette.

It’s not worse in _quality_ , not like the ill-fitting sad silk trader of Cintra, but it’s worse to look in a mirror and see something _nice_. _Too_ nice, not like anything Geralt should be allowed to wear, a lie to cover the scars and distract from the fangs.

“You don’t mean that!” Jaskier looks hurt, genuine as if Geralt had insulted his singing. “Do you know how much extra the tailor charged for the ‘challenging proportions’? You’re a very difficult man to fit, and I had to find fabric that wasn’t _too_ gaudy—“

“I was kidding. It’s nice, Jaskier.”

“Kidding,” Jaskier scoffs and lowers his voice into an imitation of Geralt’s, “ _I don’t kid, Jaskier_.”

Jaskier looks sideways at him, presumably to voice more complaints, but his face breaks into a grin at the sight of Geralt’s smirk.

“ _There_. That’s the face you’ll need; just keep that up for the rest of the night.”

Reflexively, Geralt frowns at the prospect, but Jaskier catches his face before he can and uses his fingers to push it back into a smile. Jaskier is lucky is Geralt so focused on remaining calm tonight; any other day such antics would be too much.

As it is now, Geralt limits himself to batting away Jaskier’s hands, and the smile returns, without force.

Jaskier takes his hand and squeezes once, the gesture small but meaningful. It says _I’ve got you and you’ve got this_ in no words at all, a different medium than Jaskier usually prefers to communicate with, though he’s just as skilled in silence.

Then, he lets go and tilts his head in the direction of the entrance, where others in formal dress are lining up. He’d never admit it, but Geralt’s stomach sinks in anticipation; he hasn’t felt so much dread since the _striga_.

“Let’s get this over with, yes? When we get back, I’ll pay for ale- the _good_ stuff, I hear they serve Temarian in one of the local taverns.”

Jaskier and his layers of mindless conversation (the words form around them almost like an armor of normalcy that keeps Geralt from direction contact with the unknown) lead the way, as he marches confidently into the castle. It’s akin to having a guide in an unfamiliar town- though, Geralt has never had any sort of guide that could be called _kind_ , like Jaskier.

With Jaskier as his buffer, Geralt is _almost_ comfortable diving into the crowd of noisy, smelly strangers.

Strangers who quiet as they enter the room, all eyes suddenly on them.

Geralt is no stranger to _stares_ , but he’s rarely had to face them like this: unarmed and unarmored, with no allies but a _bard_. Some animal- or witcher- instinct is insisting on _flight_ , and a voice in his mind is telling him that a few stones to the back would hurt without any leather to deflect them.

Jaskier is, unsurprisingly, completely unphased. He even waves, cheerfully, to a few people he recognizes- likely from their bedrooms.

“Smile, Geralt,” Jaskier elbows him lightly, “You’re about to show these people something they have never and will never see again in their lives.”

“Terrible dancing?”

“No, they’ve probably seen themselves in a mirror,” Jaskier laughs at his own joke, the sort of laugh he reserves for parties like this where he needs to be heard and perform, in every sound he makes, “I _meant_ a dancing witcher. _That’s_ a first, and honestly I’m thrilled that I’ll be here to see history in the making.”

Geralt glances around at the clusters of fine silks and too many sparkles. There are, indeed, quite a few staring with open curiosity. They _almost_ outnumber the disgusted sneers.

“ _This_ I have to see.”

“Who even let it in?”

“Haven’t you heard? The mage has some sort of business.”

Whispering around a witcher is never wise, but Geralt supposes not even monsters are exempt from the gossip of the courts. Really, it’s less nasty than he expected, though it makes sense that not many are willing to openly question the mage, one of the only things scarier than a witcher to any man with sense.

His attention flickers between conversations and jumps over various uninteresting characters. A few stand out with their glares directed at Jaskier, rather than Geralt, but no one more interesting than the woman that the crowds part for.

She’s dressed far more elaborately than everyone else, wearing a red dress that betrays sentimentality for a long lost time and hints at her true age hidden by the unchanging beauty of a mage. Nobody dares approach her with pleasantries or question her choice of starting spot on the dance floor. The man she’s hooked arms with, chosen as her first dancing partner, looks beyond dazed, almost too out of it to _walk_ , let alone dance.

“That’s her, right?” Jaskier huffs something between a laugh and a sigh, “You’ll be here all night if she’s planning on starting over there.”

Geralt must look _horrified_ at the idea because Jaskier is quick to placate, waving his hands. “But you’ll be fine, of course. Just like we practiced.”

“Only now I’ll have to do it with dozens of strangers.”

“Dozens of strangers who are too terrified of you to critique your dancing. Come on, let’s find partners before we wind up getting pushed off the floor.”

Jaskier must have some supernatural sense of these things because as soon as they approach the forming lines, the music takes a turn toward serious and people gravitate toward their first dancing partners. He pulls them in the direction of two unpartnered ladies, pushing Geralt into the more disoriented of the two. It takes her much longer than appreciated to take his offered hand.

With their position, Geralt can tell he’ll be dancing beside Jaskier for a while and that he’ll switch with him first. After that, he’ll be on his own in a spinning mass of dancers. The thought makes him dizzy before they even start moving.

The mage is starting in the opposite corner, purposefully far away from the witcher. It’ll take quite a few switches before he dances with her and can claim his reward.

“Sick sense of humor, that one. Though, that’s not particularly uncommon in sorceresses,” Jaskier snorts, “At least she’s not asking for your liver, or something.”

“That’s be easier. Less painful.”

“ _And_ it’d make it pretty hard to have an ale, I imagine.” Jaskier’s lady nudges him, unhappy with the amount of attention she’s getting. He turns, an apology on his lips, but stops halfway through, looking back once more at Geralt, “Relax, witcher. You’ll do great.”

Jaskier’s gaze leaving him feels like armor falling away, a blanket being ripped off, a safety net snipped. He’s _alone_ , with no one to check his footwork and tell him he’s doing it right.

The music starts and he doesn’t have any more time to lament the traditions of court that keep him a few steps away from Jaskier, or his own poor decisions that landed them here in the first place.

It does turn out to be pretty similar to a den of monsters- if a den of monsters had more variety than the deadliest menagerie. Every partner seems to have a different rhythm and just as soon as he’s used to it, he’s moving onto the next. There’s spinning and switching and footwork that nearly gets away from him more than once.

Soon, he falls into a dead focus he usually reserves for life and death struggles, mind running too fast for him to _think_. He lets the muscle memory Jaskier helped him build- and, yes, the song he composed to help him remember the pattern of steps- to guide him almost mindlessly across the floor and into the waiting arms of the sorceress.

She smiles against him chest, closer than she’s supposed to be for a polite, formal dance. They rock back and forth, steps unfaltering.

“Very good show, witcher.” A hand leaves his waist and returns with a small, glittering vial produced from gods only know where. “It’s a shame it was over so soon, but here are the ingredients, as promised. Perhaps I’ll be seeing you at the next dance?”

At the look on Geralt’s face, she laughs and leans in, too close again. “Next time you run out, then?”

“Hm.”

Another thin laugh and she’s releasing him for the final bow. He hadn’t realized before, with the blood roaring in his ears, but the orchestra has been winding down and plays its final flourish now, welcomed by thunderous applause.

Geralt removes himself from the floor quicker than humanly possible, pausing only _once_ to make sure his bard is following. 

…

“It wasn’t _all_ bad,” at Geralt’s expression, Jaskier amends, “It could’ve been worse.”

“Sure,” Geralt sits down on the bed next to Jaskier, silently distributing the food he’d brought up, ”We could’ve been swarmed by vampires.”

“ _That_ would’ve been an interesting story.”

“Thought you’d be satisfied with the once in a lifetime opportunity of seeing a witcher dance?”

Jaskier hums, a sound he’s subconsciously adopted from Geralt. His is less a grunt and more a soft note, nearly musical, but it serves the same loosely affirmative purpose.

“Lucky for you, I can spin _anything_ into an epic ballad.”

Geralt knows. He’s heard seven drafts of a song that seems to be entirely about his eyes.

“Lucky me.”

Jaskier ignores his comment, keeping his eyes on his notebook. There’re lyrics scribbled there, crossed out and written over in fresh ink, though Geralt has no idea when he’d found the time to start a song.

Lute in hand, Jaskier starts a… _familiar_ tune. It’s a new song, definitely, and yet—

It reminds him of the steps of the dance. Back and forth, then switch, turn- the same tune Jaskier put the steps to, except the lyrics have been transformed from directions to the story of a dancing witcher.

The words themselves aren’t especially important, too filled with metaphor and embellishment to bother with, so Geralt’s attention sticks more closely to Jaskier’s face as he composes, nose scrunching slightly when he has to revise the lyrics while he sings. It’s a similar expression to his concentration as he worked with Geralt’s clumsy dancing.

“Did you know it’s incredibly hard to rhyme your name? For someone so favored by Destiny, she sure made you difficult to sing about.”

“Maybe she’s not a fan of music.”

“That would definitely explain a few things.”

Jaskier stands, crossing the room to the window, and looks back at Geralt, who follows before he can think of a reason why. Standing next to each other in dim moonlight, Jaskier studies Geralt’s face, searching for _something_ Geralt couldn’t guess at.

“Nonetheless, I’m not as easily satisfied as the general masses.” Jaskier takes a step forward into Geralt’s space, testing the waters, and Geralt doesn’t move, watching curiously. “I won’t settle for just the song. I’ll be wanting another dance- for research purposes, of course. Can’t quite capture the imagery with just _one_ showing.”

“Are you going to give me some wyvern heartstrings in exchange?”

“No, but if you don’t dance with me, then I’ll be demanding _other_ forms of payment for the lessons.”

Geralt rolls his eyes but shifts a half step forward, moving from his usual stiff stance into something looser for dancing. “Dare I ask?”

“Best not to, honestly.” Jaskier lifts a hand, presenting it as he would at a dance. At court, it would be a formality, not really a question, but here it is an invitation with _weight_. “The longer you leave me hanging, the longer I have to think of a nastier favor to ask.”

Geralt hums, takes offered Jaskier’s offered hand, and puts a hand on his waist. Jaskier smiles up at him and takes the lead, as he did in their practice.

“Not a hard choice, then.”

“Not a hard choice at all, witcher.”

**Author's Note:**

> I didn't manage to get anything else done this week, but I wanted to make sure I posted at least one thing for geraskier week. Here it is, pure fluff. 
> 
> Hope you enjoyed!


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